4 ms·

That sounds an awful lot like a You* Problem, not a Me Problem. If the only way your business can stay afloat is by peddling malware to unsuspecting users, your

• untog 11y ago
  I don't see where I suggested otherwise. It will be come a You problem when these sites cease to exist because they have no money. No, we're not anywhere near that stage yet, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it.
  • coldpie 11y ago
    I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you, just continuing the discussion. > It will be come a You problem when these sites cease to exist because they have no money. Nah. Like I said, whatever value they provide is not greater than the cost of the malware they distribute. Them going out of business would be a net-good for the world.
    • untog 11y ago
      > whatever value they provide is not greater than the cost of the malware they distribute. Them going out of business would be a net-good for the world That feels like a blanket statement. When we're talking about the free press going under because they aren't able to afford to keep running, that sounds a lot more like an Us problem than a You or Me problem. Yes, I realise that sounds hyperbolic, but...
      • coldpie 11y ago
        To me this feels like a false dichotomy. There are business models other than "literally distributing malware" and the only reason they're not pursued is because distributing malware is currently profitable. We need to make that not the case so we can move on.
      • __jal 11y ago
        No, we're not talking about "the free press" going under. We're talking about news (and "news" and entertainment and…) sites that take money from malware pushers. Think about that. If your news source is willing to take money from folks attacking your machine, what does that say about their trustworthiness? Sure, go on about the wall between church and state, or that it is the ad network and not blog, but there is a reason some of the larger corporations occasionally go on media buying sprees. I'm not sure that it is strictly impossible to be financially dependent on others and maintain a completely independent voice, but I can't think of an example. It is a suboptimal situation. I get that publishers are ending up with horrible tradeoffs. At the same time, if faced with a close friend who has ebola, I'm going to be incredibly sympathetic while also keeping quarantine. I also heard another complaint about my approach, which was that if I avoid sites like Forbes, why do I still need an ad blocker? And of course, the answer is that I rarely bump in to things or stumble, but still like guardrails on steps.
  • chris_wot 11y ago
    Who says that this will be a problem? We'll just start paying for content.
  • lmm 11y ago
    > It will be come a You problem when these sites cease to exist because they have no money. No, we're not anywhere near that stage yet, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it. At this point I'm willing to take the risk of there being less content on the web.
    • bduerst 11y ago
      Then you are precisely who Forbes is targeting to keep content away from.
      • lmm 11y ago
        So can we reverse the ban on discussing site paywalls already, and stop putting posts from Forbes.com on HN?
        • bduerst 11y ago
          Nope, because this site is more than just you and your views.
  • fao_ 11y ago
    Here's an idea: Maybe they should try and find cheaper hosting[0] and solutions, rather than getting the reader to foot the bill for their (generally) crappy technical decisions. [0]: I generally suggest nearlyfreespeech.net
    • ultramancool 11y ago
      Yeah, there's plenty of sneaky ways to host for dirt cheap. OVH, DigitalOcean and CloudFlare have really worked wonders for me. The hosting isn't usually the expense here though - it's reporters, photographers, etc. How do you pay that many people's salaries? Answer is probably that you don't - these companies will probably fail and other companies that can get away with cheap hosting and staffing will hack together comparable things using amateurish content. I'm fine with it. I just want them to die already so that alternatives will spring up more readily.
    • duskwuff 11y ago
      I like NFSN's approach, and they're cheap enough for small sites, but their hosting is incredibly expensive at any kind of scale. ($0.25/GB traffic, $1.00/GB/mo storage, plus various other miscellaneous fees.)